Event details

To celebrate Ireland’s third annual Internet Day, the IE Domain Registry (IEDR), the company that manages and maintains Ireland’s country domain name, .ie, hosted an evening with Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales.

Mr Wales, previously ranked as one of TIME Magazine’s most influential people in the world, founded the free encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, in 2001. Wikipedia is the fifth most visited website globally and counts half a billion unique visitors each month.

At the event, Mr Wales discussed the threats to online knowledge-sharing and his mission to combat the rise of ‘fake news’ with evidence-based journalism via his new site WikiTRIBUNE. Launching later this year, WikiTRIBUNE is a collaborative online news publication that allows professional journalists and volunteers to work side by side, co-researching and co-writing articles together. Mr Wales took selected questions from the audience via Twitter in a Q&A session at the end of his address moderated by Irish Independent Technology Editor, Adrian Weckler.

Opening address

Ireland's Internet Day was opened with an address by David Curtin, Chief Executive of IE Domain Registry. Against a backdrop of conflicting EU and US regulatory frameworks, David Curtin set out the case for Ireland’s new Internet Policy Forum announced at Internet Day 2017. See more info on Ireland's Internet Policy Forumhere.

An evening with the founder of Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales is the co-founder of Wikipedia, the 5th largest website in the world. Named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People," Jimmy Wales was also acknowledged by the World Economic Forum — the foremost global gathering of political, business and cultural leaders — as one of the top 250 leaders across the world for his professional accomplishments, his commitment to society, and his potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.This past April, Jimmy Wales announced WikiTRIBUNE, a planned news website in which professional journalists research and report news stories alongside volunteers who curate articles by proofreading, fact-checking, suggesting changes and adding sources. This new platform is expected to launch this Winter.